So Davies wrote: ' This leaves me in the pink. ' 
Then scrawled his name: ' Your loving sweetheart Willie ' 
With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink 
Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, 
For once his blood ram warm; he had pay to spend, 
Winter was passing; soon the year would mend. 

He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark 
He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, 
When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark 
In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm 
With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear 
The simple, silly things she liked to hear. 

And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge 
Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. 
Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, 
And everything but wretchedness forgotten. 
To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. 
And still the war goes on; he don't know why.